07 Tuesday Jul 2020
It’s a week since I spotted my first Gatekeepers of the year and, in the past seven days, I’ve seen them in several of my local walking places, though so far only males .
They grab the wandering eye, as their bright orange pops from the vibrant green of the hedgerows and woodland rides, and in the long grass of fence lines and the gates that divide them.
You can read more about these gorgeous butterflies in my previous blogs The Gatekeeper, July 2018, and Sexing Gatekeepers, July 2019.
02 Thursday Jul 2020
Tags
British butterflies, butterflies, butterfly egg, Comma, Comma butterfly, Comma egg, Polygonia c-album
Though I set off on yesterday’s walk clad in a rain jacket, the first day of July brightened up and turned into a day full of butterflies, with sightings of my first Gatekeepers of the year, a couple of second-brood Holly blues and more than 20 second-brood Small whites, as well as seven other species. But the highlight for me was watching two Commas egg-laying on nettles, and then taking a look at their tiny eggs, which I’d not seen previously.
The butterflies were fluttering around, checking out nettle plants growing alongside the footpath I was walking and, when they found a plant to their liking, they would alight briefly on a leaf, lay a single egg, then flutter off again.
At less than 1mm tall, these eggs are tiny, and I would never have spotted them unless I’d seen them being laid. They’re pale green in colour, with 10 or 11 white ribs running vertically up the sides.
According to Peter Eeles’s Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, each female Comma will lay about 250 eggs, usually on the upper side of a leaf, in a sheltered, sunny position. The eggs will gradually change colour to yellow and, in two or three weeks, to grey, before the little caterpillars hatch. Eggs-citing!
Comma showing the distinctive marking that gave it its name
26 Friday Jun 2020
I’ve been melting in this week’s heatwave but it’s been a wonderful week for butterflies: on Monday, a long-lost Small heath, on Wednesday my first Painted Lady of the year, and yesterday two Essex skippers.
I went early to Grangemoor Park to avoid the worst of the heat but it was already roasting, and the skippers, Large and Small, were scooting around the grasses and wildflowers so rapidly that I couldn’t get many photos. Then, along one path, two skippers flew up, one disappeared but the other found a perch and stayed there, most patiently, while I quietly edged my way around in front of it to check what I suspected from the rear view. And, bingo, black-tipped antennae – an Essex skipper.
A second path, an almost perfect repeat performance, a second Essex skipper. I do find these gorgeous little skippers will remain on a perch when they find one to their liking, which is extremely convenient for getting photos to confirm their identities.
25 Thursday Jun 2020
As well as the Great crested grebes I wrote about yesterday (and many other birds, of course), I also found a little treasure on Monday’s Cardiff Bay walk, a Small heath butterfly. These are common butterflies in many parts of Britain but, for some unknown reason, they are now rare in my part of south Wales. In almost five years of looking, this is the first I’ve found, and Monday’s find is only the third confirmed local record in ten years. Sadly, I only managed a couple of not-very-good photos so I’ll need to try to re-find it.
Yesterday’s walk, in the meadows next to a local woodland, also produced a treasure. As well as many other butterflies (Meadow browns and Ringlets, Large and Small skippers, a couple each of Commas and Red admirals, a Speckled wood and a few flyby white species), I saw my first Painted lady of 2020. I love both the top and side markings of this beautiful creature.
16 Tuesday Jun 2020
Yesterday was a day of two firsts, my first sightings of (several) Ringlet butterflies for this year (and at two different locations), and my first gorgeous Small skipper as well. Here they are …
12 Friday Jun 2020
Tags
British butterflies, butterfly, Comma, Green-veined white, Large skipper, Meadow Brown, Speckled wood
‘… flowers that fly and all but sing’
~ from ‘Blue-butterfly Day’, a poem by Robert Frost
These are some of the ‘flowers’ that have been flying around me this week, causing my heart to sing.
Comma, one of three seen on Tuesday’s walk
Green-veined white
Large skipper, a butterfly with attitude
Meadow brown, from a count of 54 in a single meadow
Speckled wood
08 Monday Jun 2020
Tags
Aglais io, British butterflies, butterfly caterpillars, butterfly larvae, Peacock butterfly, Peacock butterfly larvae, Peacock caterpillars
’Tis the time of the larvae, in this case, the larvae of the Peacock butterfly (Aglais io).
According to Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, a female Peacock lays her eggs in batches of about 400 in the centre of a patch of nettles growing in a sheltered position that enjoys full sun. After about two weeks, the Peacock larvae/caterpillars hatch and begin their journey to adulthood.
As they munch on the nettles, they grow, and as they grow, they need to moult their skins. They do this four times, each stage known as an instar, before they pupate. The process takes about 30 days in total, and each of the five instars looks a little different.
During last Friday’s walk, I was lucky enough to find big colonies of larvae in two different places, and both groups had larvae of the third, fourth and fifth instars, all feeding together. In the photo above, the brownish caterpillars are third instar, the darker caterpillars with spines and spots are fourth instar, and the large caterpillar on the right of the image is fifth instar.
Not surprisingly, I got a few nettle stings getting these photos but it was worth it. As some of the largest caterpillars looked very close to pupation, I’ll revisit one of these sites this week to see if I can locate any pupas.
06 Saturday Jun 2020
The latest butterfly species to grace the fields in my area is the Meadow brown (Maniola jurtina). I actually saw my first on Monday but it’s taken a few days to get even half decent photos as all the butterflies I’ve seen have either been flying frantically from place to place and/or hunkering down in the vegetation so effectively that they’ve been almost impossible to see.
In his fabulous publication Life Cycles of British & Irish Butterflies, Peter Eeles notes that, due to their colour differences, the male and female Meadow browns were once thought to be two separate species, the male named the ‘Brown Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’ and the female the ‘Golden Meadow Ey’d Butterfly’. In the photo below, the male is on the left, the female on the right.
Apparently, there are also colour variations in different parts of Britain, and scientists have officially identified these as four separate subspecies. The ones I see here in south Wales are Maniola jurtina insularis, which is the most widespread. Personally, I often have trouble simply telling male from female, and that’s something I’m going to try to improve during the next few months.
28 Thursday May 2020
The highlight of yesterday’s walk to Lavernock Nature Reserve was seeing this little beauty, my first Small copper of the year.
They’re tiny butterflies but they punch well above their weight, fearlessly challenging any other butterflies that stray too close to their territory, as this one did today with a male Common blue.
This Small copper was in pristine condition so, presumably, had very recently emerged. The vibrancy and intensity of its copper colour was simply stunning.
26 Tuesday May 2020
I have a new favourite field, only discovered in recent months while I’ve been exploring new, less crowded, local footpaths for my exercise walks, and it’s exciting discovering, as the season progresses, what is living in this field. As I emerged from woodland into the field yesterday, a little burst of orange flashed across in front of my feet, and I knew immediately this was my first Large skipper of the year.
Despite their bright colouring, I find skippers are very good at disappearing in plain sight, so I took a couple of steps back, got my camera ready and waited. Less than 60 seconds had passed before the skipper bounced up from the long grass where it had been resting and flitted down on to the path again.
A second male then entered the territory of the first and they spiralled up into the air briefly, before separating and returning to their own patches, spat over.
I lingered a while to watch both butterflies, flying, perching, feeding, before I continued my walk. And to my delight, I found yet another male further along the track, so I assume ‘my’ field is home to a small but healthy colony of Large skippers. I’m already looking forward to seeing them again when next I walk that way.
